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The Writing Center

Writing as Process

Although we name several stages in the complex process of writing, none of them are quite so neatly defined as they may seem. Nevertheless, it is useful to identify them.

Prewriting or Getting started: A time for collecting ideas, information, thinking about the topic and trying to arrive at a focus for the paper. The term prewriting doesn’t actually mean you don’t DO any writing but that you are not yet interested in drafting the paper.

Drafting:

First Draft: When you begin to write the paper itself you may have a clear enough idea of where you are going to begin at the beginning. Sometimes, though, when you are still trying to refine your focus, you may want to jump to some section of the paper that you already feel comfortable with, returning later to supply the ending.

Later drafts: These will likely include elements of revision. At some point you will want to title your paper.

Feedback: After you have completed a first draft, you may find it useful to ask others to read it through. Their comments can be used as feedback to help you as you begin to revise. You might receive useful feedback from other students in the class, the instructor, or tutors in the Writing Center.

Revising: Most academic writing requires substantial revision. Revising is not a simple matter of cleaning up spelling and punctuation . Instead you should think of it as re-seeing your subject: have you articulated what you want to say about it as well as possible? Have you adapted what you have to say to the specific audience targeted in this paper? Have you observed the expected conventions for writing? Are paragraphs developed fully? Do ideas flow smoothly?

Editing: This is a focused form of revising that addresses matters of usage and grammar such as spelling, punctuation, lay-out.

Publishing: This term refers to printing out the final, edited version for submission to your audience (instructor, probably).

Organizing

Outlining before you draft

Write your thesis at the top of the page. If you don’t have a clearly developed thesis yet, write your topic at the top and perhaps, your attitude toward the topic.
Use prewriting to generate supporting points.
Determine which patterns of development to use with each of these supporting points. Some patterns of development are description, narration, illustration, division/classification, process, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, definition, argument, and historical overview. Alternately, you may decide that it works better for you to think about the patterns of development first, and then pre-write to generate supporting points that work within the boundaries of particular patterns of development.
Once you have several supporting points, determine which organizational strategy would work best—chronological, spatial, emphatic, simple-to-complex.
At this point, you should reevaluate your supporting material. Delete anything that doesn’t develop the thesis (and by step five you should be able to clearly articulate the thesis) or that isn’t appropriate for your purpose or audience. Add new material where evidence seems weak.
Group related items together and give each group a heading that represents a main topic in support of your thesis.
Identify subtopics and group them under appropriate main topics in what appears to you to be the most logical sequence.
Again, examine your outline looking for places where evidence is weak and adding additional information to those places. Confirm that every main topic, subtopic, supporting point, and specific detail in some way develops some aspect of your thesis. Delete any information that does not. Confirm that all is arranged in the most logical order, conforming to one of the organizational strategy listed above.

Outlining after you have produced a first draft and have discovered your claim

Informal outlines
Formal outlines

Drafting

Starting at the beginning

Whether you begin your first draft in the middle or at the beginning, sooner or later you will need to write an introduction. Here are some ideas for pulling your reader into the paper.

A startling fact or statistic
A vivid example
A description
A paradoxical statement
A quotation or bit of dialogue
A question
An analogy
A joke or anecdote
A bit of historical background
A definition
Information that moves from general to specific
Information that moves from the known to the new

Starting in the middle

Beginning with a claim: constructing an argument

Discovering a claim: epistemic writing

Revising

Turning your conclusion (discovered claim) into a claim/thesis
Reworking organization for effective presentation of support
Developing ideas fully; perhaps returning to research or freewriting phase to generate more information
Using tools: grammar checks
Spellchecks
Adjusting Voice
Adapting to the audience
Economy of expression

Cross out prepositional phrases: A preposition comes before a noun or pronoun to create a phrase that modifies another word in the sentence. The noun or the pronoun is called the object of the preposition, and the phrase that is created is called a prepositional phrase. Prepositions show relationships between objects and ideas in a sentence. The object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a sentence, so spotting and crossing out prepositional phrases will help you find the subject.

Some common prepositions: